UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says 'tough decisions' to come, in first news conference | BBC News

we're a change labor party and yesterday we started the work of changing the country and as the dust dust settles on Thursday's result what is becoming clear for I think all to see is the mood of the nation of the country uh what is expected of us and the Mandate that we have to deliver change uh it's a mandate not just to govern although it is certainly that but it's a mandate that has put trust in US to change the country and to deliver and it's a mandate to do politics differently and that change started yesterday as well I have as you'll have seen appointed a cabinet that was done yesterday afternoon and completed uh some went to the privy Council this morning to receive their seals which was a moment in history uh we followed that with the first cabinet meeting of the labor government of 2024 at that cabinet meeting I had the opportunity to set out to my cabinet precisely what I expect of them in terms of Standards uh delivery uh and the trust that the country has put in them and yesterday I met lorri Magnus the independent advisor on standards to discuss how we deliver in government at the cabinet meeting I also discussed Mission delivery how we would put into action the plans that we had set out in our Manifesto and that we will have Mission delivery boards to drive through the change that we need and that I will be chairing those boards to make sure that it's clear to everyone uh that they are my priority in government uh we also talked about preparations for the King speech um and I reminded the entire cabinet um that we will be judged on actions not on Words um and um this afternoon I will continue to make uh a number of front bench appointments we clearly on Thursday got a mandate uh from all four nations for the first time in 20 plus years uh we have a majority in England in Scotland and in Wales and that is a clear mandate uh to govern for all four corners of the United Kingdom and therefore I shall set off tomorrow to be in all four nations I shall go first to Scotland I shall then go to Northern Ireland then to Wales and then back to England where I will meet the first ministers not just to discuss the issues and challenges of the day uh of course we will do that but also to establish a way of working across the United Kingdom that will be different and better to the way of working that we've had in recent years and to recognize the contributions of all four nations on Thursday we also got a mandate on economic growth the number one mission of the labor government and so we discussed at cabinet and have started the work on driving growth and to make sure that growth is everywhere across the whole country so that people are better off everywhere wherever they live the principle I operate to is those with skin in the game know what's best for their communities and that does require us to be bold about pushing power and resource out of whiteall and therefore when I return uh from the four nations I shall hold a meeting of the Metro Mayors to discuss with them their part in delivering the growth that we need across the United Kingdom that will be on Tuesday that will include non-labor metr Mares there's no Monopoly on good ideas um and I'm not a tribal politician and the principle I operate to whether it's Mayors or other elected representatives is that where Regional leaders want to deliver for their area then regardless of the color of their rosette my door is open and my government will work with them later on Tuesday I shall set off to Washington for the NATO Summit I already had a number of international calls as you will know and as you would have expected uh to establish the relations across with other countries to have really important discussions about Ukraine and other pressing issues and Washington will be an opportunity for me to have further discussions with some of the leaders I've already spoken to and some that I'm due to speak to it is of course an important Summit on NATO it is uh for me to be absolutely clear that the first duty of my government is security and defense to make clear our unshakable support of NATO um and of course uh to reiterate as I did to President zalinski yesterday um the support that we will have in this country and with our allies towards Ukraine so this will be a politics and a government that is about delivery is about service self-interest is yesterday's politics I want a politics in a country that works for you thank you very much and I will now take a number of questions starting I think with Chris thank you prime minister Chris Mason BBC News you've said that change can't be delivered by flicking a switch but plenty of people might want lots of switches flicked pretty quickly and so I wonder how soon you can actually start delivering concrete change and if I may um have you unpacked yet have you found your way around uh well there are two different questions um look I'm Restless for change and I think and hope that what you've already seen um demonstrates that uh not least the appointment yesterday of Patrick Valance and James timson um to individuals who are associated with change and delivery and it won't surpris you to know uh that the discussions I had yesterday um with them were not the first discussions I've had with them we've been talking to them for some time about the need for the change that we will put in place but look 14 years it is going to take time but we've started uh we've got plans in place um up until uh the election I was clearly not wanting to get ahead of the election result but we have been planning four months uh hitting the ground running I have had extensive conversations myself as has the now cabinet with all those that they need to deliver with which are uh to ensure that we can hit the ground running and put into place the plans that we need there'll be further announcements coming over coming days but that preparation has been extensive over the last uh 6 months I've required all of my now cabinet uh to have gone through on their brief the decisions that need to be taken the people they're going to talk to in relations those decisions that work has been going on for six months or more um and that means we can hit the ground running but look um it is not an over ey exercise changing the country thank you Chris I'll go to Beth please thank you thank you very much um prime minister you have won a massive majority but your vote share is quite low it's much lower in terms of voter support than Blair in 1997 you talk about the mood of the country I think you have some ideas as to why can you give us one concrete thing that you will promise voters you will deliver in your first 100 days to make them believe the change message and if you'd indulge us millions of people saw that exit pole drop some of them gasped what was your emotion when you saw it thank you uh thank you very much look the the the thing that's changed already is the mindset of government it's a mindset of service of country first party second that's not a slogan that is the test for all of our decisions so when submissions come to me from the cabinet when I've had to take decisions which I've already had to of course the the principle is country first party second and that's the dve driving principle so that change has already happened I set out um before the election what our first steps will be we've started work on those first steps you've seen where streeting make clear the steps he's already taking to resolve some of the issues that have been unresolved uh for some time with a degree of raw honesty as well as to the state of being so that's the Mandate that's uh how we go forward and look you know in relation to the outcome on Thursday it is a clear mandate uh we argued for change we've got that mandate we've got it in for all four nations and that is really important for us um as well um I was pleased to see that exit poll um I didn't I didn't believe it until um like everybody else I stayed up to watch every single result come in um peppered with the speeches I gave including the one at 5:00 a.m. at the uh event that we held but it was only as the final results came through that um I was confident that we' got to where we needed to be to do the work that we need to do um Chris I didn't answer the second part of your as to finding my way around I've got a basic understanding the rooms I've used so far here um and that's good but there are plenty of hidden places I'm yet to discover um and no we're not unpacked uh quite yet but we will be um soon and we'll be moving in soon but uh there's a bit of work to do before then of course I'm off to Washington on Tuesday thank you very much Beth um Robert uh Rob ITV um prime minister you talk about the need for a reset one of the lessons of Labor governments is the need to take the tough decisions early we've already heard from West streeting that in his view the policy now of the NHS is that it is broken if in the coming weeks as you go through Department by Department you find that things are worse than you expected are you prepared to take tough decisions early including possibly raising more from Taxation and then secondly just on on Beth's point about how you've won the biggest majority relative to the size of the vote in history in history um you said yesterday that your priority would be to govern for those who didn't vote for you some 80% of British voters didn't vote for you that's including those who didn't vote at all what does that mean in practice in a sense for the culture of the government and how you'll govern uh thank you Robert Look in relation to the tough decisions we're going to have to take the tough decisions and take them early and we will um we will do do that with a raw honesty uh and that's really what sat behind West streeting description yesterday of the NHS is being broken uh it is everybody who uses it and works in it knows that it is broken and we're not going to operate under the pretense or language that doesn't Express the problem as it is because otherwise we won't be able to fix the problem as quickly as we need to and we'll continue in that vein there are other issues prisons would be an obvious example uh where other parts of the system are broken and we're going to have to approach that with a raw honesty um as well and we will take the tough um decisions but uh that is not a a sort of Prelude to saying um there's some tax decision that we didn't speak about before we're about to announce now it's about the tough decisions to fix the problem of being honest about what they are on the second part of your question um it was very important to me to say what I said on the steps yesterday about those that didn't vote for us because we're a government of Serv um to all people whether they voted for us or not um and I include within that people who voted labor for the first time on Thursday because across the country in many places people will have voted labor for the first time perhaps never having voted labor before and I recognize that um and that they put their trust and confidence in us um and we have to repay that so we hold them in Our Minds Eye people who didn't vote for us um need to know that we will serve them that we will not turn turn our back on people just because we don't think they voted for us we'll govern for the whole uh country and that's what I meant by what I said yesterday it's about taking the country forward um and doing that you know in conjunction with our first ministers doing that in conjunction with our Mayors and other elected representatives uh across the areas so that we can govern for the whole of the country and take the country forward and turn our back on tribal politics um and simply picking issues we want to fight just for the party politics of it that's what's gone wrong in my view in the last few years uh where priorities are simply set by party Advantage rather than country uh first and that's an example of what I mean by country first party second and um that's the approach